The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1887-08-11
OYSPEPTIc NEWSPAPER MEN.


Ones Physical Condition Sure to Affect
His Writing-Several Cases.
| have great sympathy for a dyspeptic
newspaper man; the suffering he endures is
beyond expression. And whether he wishes
it OF not his own physical condition is sure to
be reflected in whatever he writes The brain
and the stomach are so intimately connected
that if the latter is raw and irritated, or weak
and inefficient, the former suffers in the same
| degree through reflex action, and the thoughts
emanating thence receive a certain coloring.
l recolect once upon time sitting at BAN
quet at the Astor house, in New York city,
given Ill honor of some newspaper men, at
which Horace Greeley presided. was at his
left hand and had a fine opportunity to study
his table manners and see with my own eyes
what the philosopher fed upon, for, as Rose
Elizabeth Cleveland said in her Lippincotts
Magazine poem, what one eats'has q vast in
fiuence over what one thinks and does. AL
though the table at the Astor house was
loaded with good things, of which the lesser
lights in journalism partook beautifully, Mr..
Greeley contented himself with a bowl of
plain bread and milk and fruit, the same food
he ate when boy in New Hampshire And
If he finally lost his mind and died in a pri-
vate asylum it was through no fault in his
habits of living; through no faint or disease
IKE rheumatism, cancer, dyspepsia, Bright's
disease, heart trouble, or any other of the
dreadful ills which attack and carry off so
many mortals.
The man who is simple in his habits of liv-
ing, as President Cleveland is, for instance,
and as Nh Greeley was, can accomplish a
vast amount of work every day, and not
break down. l am led to these remarks by
noticing that 2. l.. White, the voracious
newspaper correspondent, is very i'll in New
York city with terrific attack of dyspepsia
The last time / saw him in Washington he
looked thin and half used up. He had then
just come on from Providence, R. l.. where
he had abandoned The Star to its fate. Since
then he has been pitching into newspaper
and magazine writing at a brealneck speed,
rushing back and forth between New York
and Washington, interviewing everybody,
going to clubs writing up sketches of sena-
tors, ETC., until he broke down. man with
weak stomach cannot stand such a mental
strain-there is no nervous energy left to
digest food and supply nutrition. 1t has all
been coined into ideas for spot boilers"
Such course is suicidal as suicidal as was
the life of Ben Perley Poore, who is said, in
Washington to have "dug his grave with his
teeth" He was a gourmand, fond of big din
ners, and always eating them if he had a
chance, and he managed to get the oppor-
tunity pretty often. Like DR.. Howard
Crosby, he was fond of his glass of wine, and
took it. The result was he grew to be enor-
mously fat-a very elephant of man; his
kidneys broke down under the enormous
amount of work imposed upon them, and he
died.
1t seems therefore, quite as bad to be
glutton as it is to be dyspeptic, from a
literary point Of view. But, you say, Car
lyle was dyspeptic. The reply is he would
have been much more of man than he was
if he had had sound stomach. In any
event, he was a genius. Much can be for
given on that score. Washington Cor. Kan
sas City Journal